Charlotte

Charlotte, PRINCESS, born at Carlton House, London, 7th January 1796, was the only child of the future George IV. and Caroline of Brunswick, who parted immediately after her birth. A bright, lively, warm-tempered girl, she was brought up in strict seclusion, under various governesses and sub-governesses, seeing her father rarely, and her mother only for two hours a week. Her six months' engagement to Prince William of Orange she herself broke off in June 1814, greatly to George's fury; had the match come off it might have been as momentous in its consequences as that of the Princess Mary to another Prince William of Orange. On 2d May 1816 she married Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg; but the marriage, a happy one, was cut short on 5th November 1817 by her death, after giving birth to a still-born boy. See the Memoir by Lady Rose Weigall (1874), and the monograph by Mrs Herbert Jones (1885).